


Not Just For Christmas

by hypernomad



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:14:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2321882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypernomad/pseuds/hypernomad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian is discharged from hospital, and Mickey has a surprise. A stolen one. But Mickey thinks "rescued" is more on the nose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Just For Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Dog!fic, recovery fic, fluff, and angst.
> 
> I'll apologise for my complete ignorance of the Russian language in advance; sadly I was not able to get in contact with my friend, who is a native speaker. I will probably change it if it's incorrect when she gets back to me, unless of course someone else beats her to the punch. Otherwise, enjoy!

It’s beginning to get dark earlier.

Mickey is walking along his street on his way home from the tug shop, moping. He had to toss out three johns that day for getting too rough with the girls, which is lower than their current average of five incidents per day. The girls themselves are getting pretty good at giving what Svetlana now calls “Moscow Kisses” (which involve a painful collision of Russian foreheads and American nasal bones), but Mickey had broken a few ribs just out of pure frustration anyway.

Ian is still in the hospital.

He’s coming out soon, though, and he’s starting to feel a little better if his affection toward Mickey during his daily visits is anything to go by. Mickey still has nightmares about Ian barely registering his presence. At least he’d acknowledged him more than he did anybody else, but it still hurt. Glancing up, Mickey sees that the sky is streaked with yellow, mauve and orange. Ian would like it. Ian and his fucking sunsets. Ian and his red hair. Mickey sighs and glances ahead. The street lights are just starting to glow. It’s almost peaceful, but Mickey feels nothing but a familiar sad, longing ache in his chest for the boy he loves.

He’s startled out of his reverie by a police siren, which up until this point has been typical Southside background noise, rolling up the street behind him before it mounts the sidewalk right in front of him and nearly knocks the Milkovich over. To Chicago PD, it’s almost like like killing two birds with one stone as two officers jump out of the car, run up the steps leading to a redbrick house and yell their mantra of _“Police, open up!”_ and then kick the door open and storm in without waiting for a response. It takes less than three minutes for them to wrestle Mickey’s neighbour – who is clad only in a pair of boxers, an open Adidas track top and filthy grey socks – out of his home as he cusses up a storm, hands cuffed behind him, and into the back of the police car.

Mickey lights up a cigarette and watches the whole spectacle—not that it’s exactly a spectacle in their neighbourhood. He smirks as Toby Wozniak shouts and writhes in the backseat.

_‘Guess they found out about the meth lab.’_

Just before the car drives away, Mickey gets bored and walks back home.

As he lays in bed that night, alone, he thinks of Toby Wozniak’s house. It’s a little small, but it’s not that bad, considering that half the houses in his dump of a neighbourhood are barely even habitable. He wonders if Ian would like it there. He probably wouldn’t. Ian liked high-rise condos on the north side where you could see the whole night-eclipsed city lit up like a galaxy. He’d told him so. Then again, Mickey also knows that Ian Gallagher fantasizes about the white-picket-fence deal too. He’d heard him talking in his sleep once; mumbling about converting the attic into a bigger room for the two of them and telling the dog not to shit on the front lawn.

Neither he nor Ian had a front lawn, and neither did either of them have the money to convert anything. Mickey had kept listening, and then Ian had mumbled Mickey’s name halfway through an unintelligible sentence. Part of it sounded a bit like ‘hummer’. Elated, Mickey had obliged him gladly once he woke up.

Thinking about it, Mickey’s pretty sure that Toby Wozniak actually has a dog. He’s pretty sure he lives alone, too. He never sees anybody else around his place (apart from occasional visits from other Slavic guys in tracksuits), but he distinctly remembers there being a slightly worse-for-wear puppy sniffing around his front yard more than once. In fact, Mandy had come home a couple of weeks ago swearing and hissing from a bite on her fingers that she said had been given to her by some _‘tiny fucking hell hound masquerading as a pit bull puppy or some shit’_.

Mickey thinks that someone running a meth lab probably doesn’t do a very good job of looking after his animals.

He is correct.

The next day, he leaves the house with a crowbar and his favourite revolver shoved down the back of his jeans. He makes his way toward Toby Wozniak’s house and circles it cautiously. None of the lights are on. The miscellaneous crap on the front yard is in exactly the same arrangement as it was the day before. The ground is sodden with rainwater and the tyre tracks from the cop car are still imbedded into the mud. This is good enough indication to Mickey that there is nobody home.

He jogs up the front steps and takes a quick look through the window before he jams the crowbar into the crack of the door and jimmies it until it pops open.

Works every time.

The door squeaks open on its hinges and Mickey steps inside. The place is a total dump. As he walks into the living room, he sees that Toby doesn’t just keep the drugs in the lab. The coffee table is littered with drug paraphernalia, including a half-rolled joint. There’s tobacco spilled over the floor and a small plastic baggie of weed. Mickey pockets it without a second thought and then looks over at the cabinet beside the T.V. There’s a wide array of action movies, and he spends a few minutes looking through them. He’s seen some of them, but Toby Wozniak doesn’t have very good taste. He shrugs, then makes his way into the little kitchen and rummages through the cupboards for some food. He shoves an unopened box of Froot Loops, a bag of Doritos, a packet of cookies, two cups of instant ramen, and the three bottles of unopened Budweiser from the fridge under his arms, but other than that, there’s not much else worth stealing. There’s scattered litter all over the floor, mostly spilling from an overturned trash can.

Glancing at the work top, he finds a large stack of multi-coloured post-it notes. He thinks this is a little weird, but he doesn’t really get why he has them. He rummages around for a few more minutes, checking to see if there are any chunky envelopes, when he stops at the sound of quiet growling somewhere to the side of him.

To his left, he notices a staircase with a half open cupboard built into it. There’s a vent and a lock on the door and in the open crack is a small, tan-and-white coloured puppy. It yaps at Mickey a few times and tries to appear threatening, but since the animal is no bigger than an eighteen-month old, it somewhat fails to frighten a Milkovich like Mickey.

“You want a fight, fucker, you’re going to have to do better than that.” He says. “I don’t waste my time on wimps.”

The dog growls again.

Mickey sighs and drops his stolen shit on the counter before he takes a look through the cupboards. There is not a single scrap of dog food or kibble to be found.

“Guess he wasn’t too fond of you, huh?” He asks. The dog cocks his head at him.

He opens the fridge with a sighed curse and finds a cardboard take-out box with two greasy fried chicken pieces on the bottom shelf. He sniffs one of them, and when it appears to smell okay, he turns to slide it across the floor.

To his surprise however, the puppy is suddenly right beside him, standing up on its hind legs and leaning on Mickey’s thigh with a whimper. Mickey feels his heart melt a little bit. His orangey fur and hazel coloured puppy eyes look pathetically familiar. With a sigh, he lowers to the chicken leg into the animal’s mouth. He can’t help but smile when the puppy takes it gently and then trots off back under the stairs.

After a few moments, Mickey follows the puppy back to his apparent bed. Opening the door a little, he sees that the puppy is sleeping on a velour tracksuit top and has nothing else for company but a chewed up child’s teddy.

Mickey can’t help it.

He can’t just _leave_ him there, can he?

He’s not sure when he developed a moral compass (or, rather, when his moral compass righted itself), but if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that he has a weakness for orange things with puppy dog eyes.

While he waits for the puppy to finish gnawing on his chicken leg, he creeps up the stairs and looks to see if there’s anything else worth stealing. He finds a half-full pack of Marlboro Reds on the nightstand and considers taking the bottle of lube in the draw. He decides he’s not really nasty enough to use Toby Wozniak’s weird bubblegum scented lube, and then looks around his bedroom a little more. To his surprise, he finds a couple of weird Dutch gay porn DVDs and a copy of one of the porno magazines Ian likes. He carries his haul downstairs and returns to the kitchen. Once again, the puppy is milling around him and trying to jump on him. “Alright, fuck off!” He says. “Wait a minute, you little shit.”

The puppy, obviously, doesn’t listen.

He rummages around for a plastic bag to shove his stolen things into (including the other leftover chicken from the fridge and the chewed up child’s toy), and then scoops the wriggling, tail-wagging puppy up in his other arm to take him home.

And this is how Mickey Milkovich got a puppy.

*

Two weeks later, Ian is settling back in from having been discharged. Mickey hasn’t told him about the puppy yet. He’s asked Mandy to keep him in her room – which she isn’t at all happy about (“ _How the fuck are we going to feed him, fucknuts?”_ ) – because he doesn’t want to overwhelm his boyfriend the second he comes home from hospital.

They’re laying in bed. They’d stripped and got straight into their bed once Fiona had finally let them go home after a long, loud dinner. Mickey isn’t really happy with her for shoving the whole family in Ian’s face the second he gets out of Nurse Ratched’s grasp, but Ian really doesn’t want people tiptoeing around him and Mickey just wants him to be happy.

Truthfully, Ian had wanted to lay in bed with Mickey all day the second he got out of hospital, but he’d also missed his family and the chaos that was so familiar to him. The sterile quiet of the hospital didn’t make him feel normal at all. Mickey had spent many mornings wrapped up in Ian’s itchy, deflated hospital bed with him, but they hadn’t had the space or privacy to be skin-to-skin like this. They haven’t had sex yet though – Ian’s meds make him feel sick and not sexy at all, so Mickey waits patiently.

Mickey lays flat on Ian’s smooth, bare chest, his sparse ginger chest hairs tickling the shell of his ear. “I missed you.” He mumbles, closing his eyes and feeling as though he was going to slip into the younger man’s skin.

“Did you?” Ian grumbles, a small smile playing on his mouth. “I never would’ve guessed from the fifteen other times you’ve said that to me.”

Mickey groans and wriggles impossibly closer. Ian laughs and plants a kiss on his head, his arms cocooning the brunet tightly. It feels so good to hear Ian telling jokes – his real, dorky, not funny at all jokes. Mickey’s been used to Ian not being able to finish telling jokes without laughing hysterically at them mid-sentence, even though he’s told the same joke three or four times already. Either that, or, of course, not being able to laugh at all.

“I missed you too, Mick. So much, you don’t even know—“ His voice breaks off to cover Mickey’s face in kisses. Mickey leans up and forward to plant a deep, slow kiss on the redhead’s mouth. It’s probably the most romantic kiss they’ve shared yet. It’s not big and brave like in the club or quick, shy and chaste like in the van. It’s the most loving kiss Mickey’s even given him, and Ian feels like his whole life is in that one kiss. Mickey feels like he wants to give his life to the other man. He wants to tear parts of himself off to give to Ian; he wants to rebuild what the maelstrom has picked away from the cliff of him with his own flesh and bones.

Mickey’s starting to wonder if he’s a little sick in the head, because that’s not the sort of imagery you should have in your mind when your tongue is licking your lover’s. Ian groans and sighs through his nose, and Mickey covers his hand with his where it’s clasping the side of his head. They pull away after a few minutes and hold each others’ gaze for a few moments, before sighing and relaxing against each other once more.

“I meant what I said, you know.” Ian says quietly after a few moments. They haven’t let go of each others’ hands; they rest clasped together against Ian’s chest. “In the hospital. I wasn’t just saying it because I was—you know—“

“…Bipolar?” Mickey offers gently.

“…Yeah.” Ian mutters quietly after a minute.

“I know you did.” Mickey replies, squeezing his hand. His heart flutters. There’s no doubt to excuse his fear anymore. “I know.”

“I’m sorry for everything I did, all the shit I put you through, all the guys I—“

“Ssh.” Mickey whispers, placing a peck on his chin and rubbing his nose along his jaw. “It’s alright. I know.”

“I just need you to know that I’m sorry. It’s awful what I did to you, and to Yevgeny.”

“Okay.” Mickey whispers. “I forgive you.” He does. It hurts, a bit, knowing everything that’s happened, and all the things Ian’s done. But he knows Ian would never hurt him or the baby on purpose. Not if his mind wasn’t fucking with him. In his heart, that’s all that matters to Mickey.

Ian lets out a shaky sigh. He doesn’t say anything more about it.

“I meant it too.” Mickey says after a few quiet moments. Why does he feel shy about it? “I didn’t say it to make you feel better, or because I felt sorry for you. I didn’t—I don’t want you to think I said it just because you did. I meant it.”

Ian doesn’t say anything.

“Ian?” He asks, looking up at him.

There’s a tear rolling down his cheek. Mickey sighs and his eyes soften. “You- you don’t deserve this shit.” He says finally. “You do so much, you’re so strong and—and I’m— I’m a _mess_.” He chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing the wetness away with his fingers and thumb.

“Yeah, I do deserve this.” Mickey replies. He sits up and pulls Ian’s hand away from his face. “I deserve all the shit you can give me. You’re _my_ mess, Ian Gallagher. I chose you and I still want you… all of you, everything. So don’t start trying to tell me what you’re worth or what I deserve or should and shouldn’t have. It’s not your call to make.”

A tear rolls down the side of Ian’s face and the redhead sniffs. Mickey catches it with his thumb and wipes it away. “Fuck, I’m hardly picture-perfect. Look at the fuckin’ joke my life is. I’m gay, my dad’s in prison, my mom’s dead, I have a Russian wife who knocked out two guys this week with her fuckin’ _forehead_ and a baby that can shit three times his weight in a day. And I’m _nineteen._ ”

Ian is still crying, but he is laughing through his tears now. “We’re all fucked, Ian.” Mickey says. “You just got a letter to prove it. And… I know it’s different, I know it’s for life, but it doesn’t define you. You’re _not_ your mom. _I’m_ not my dad. You proved that to me, so let me prove it to you, okay?”

Ian nods.

“Prove it to yourself.” Mickey adds, whispers it close to his mouth right before he kisses him again.

“I love you, Mickey.” Ian whispers into his ear.

“I love you too, Ian.” Mickey whispers back.

Things are silent for a while after that. They close their eyes and live in their bed, pressed against each other.

They’re close to dropping off when the dog barks from Mandy’s room next door.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Uh…”

*

Mickey hasn’t thought of a proper name for the dog yet. He’s been calling him Fuckface, and every now and then Shithead, especially when he’s curled up on his lap, sighing dog sighs while he plays Tekken with Ian. Mandy’s been calling him Simba. Mickey calls Mandy a dickhole and says that Simba is a fuckin’ lion, not a dog. Svetlana calls him ‘Printzyessa’. Yevgeny calls him ‘Eeya’. Ian doesn’t know what to name the dog, but he does want everyone to stop fucking arguing about it so he can get some sleep.

One day, about two weeks after Ian gets back from the hospital, he and Mickey are laying in bed while rain taps against the window, the wind howls outside, and the dog is curled up at their blanketed feet while Yevgeny naps in his crib nearby.

“We’re calling him Van Damme.”

“Fuck off. No we’re not.”

“Van Double Damme.” Ian chuckles.

“Seagal, asshole, or nothing.”

“No way. Seagal’s way too ugly for a dog that cute.”

“Seagal is a fuckin’ sex god. You need Jesus, man.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. You have horrific taste.”

“Clearly.” Mickey laughs.

“Fuck you, pencil-dick.” Ian laughs back. They go back to doodling obscene images on the Etch-A-Sketch that Yevgeny had received upon his birth from one of the tug shop girls. Why Natalia chose an Etch-A-Sketch for a baby, Mickey has no idea. He stamps a crude image of a pair of testicles with the circle stamp, and Ian draws a somewhat too detailed image of a penis emerging from them.

Then his cock twitches in his pants.

He’s so excited about his dick’s sudden reawakening that he completely misjudges their position on the mattress and he throws himself at the older man. The movement nearly knocks them both and the dog off the bed. Mickey is pissed with him for all of ten seconds before he realises that it’s _not_ the Etch-A-Sketch Pen digging into his thigh.

*

A few months later, the dog goes into heat.

 _“It has no balls, how the fuck you don’t realise?!”_ Observes Svetlana.

Mickey points out that he wasn’t looking at the dog’s balls (or lack thereof), because he’s not a fucking sicko, and that she ought to get her head checked out if she was looking for them herself.

Svetlana threatens to strangle him with his Ben Wa beads in Russian.

Ian names the dog Milla after Milla Jovovich. She was awesome in Resident Evil, so Mickey agrees.

Yevgeny still thinks she’s called Ian.


End file.
